Gartner is already working on a consolidated response to this event. However for the e-commerce market this is an interesting event from two points of view.

The first one is that two e-commerce Magic Quadrant vendors are consolidating into one (IBM a leader and Sterling Commerce a Challenger). Provided the deal closes without any interference, this event could signal other acquisitions of smaller e-commerce vendors by larger vendors. I believe that these acquisitions will seek to take advantage of the growing e-commerce market as organizations make investments in the web sales capabilities.

Secondarily, the e-commerce market is evolving and this evolution is well beyond those changes driven by a desire for new user experiences such as social software and mobile (more research on this coming out soon). This evolution includes much more than business-to-consumer functionality; it includes global business-to-business e-commerce with industries such as manufacturing, distribution and telecommunications seeking to improve their online self-service sales capabilities. This is where this deal will be one to watch in 2010 and beyond.

Can we see another Dot.com 2.0 with plenty of e-commerce announcements in 2010 and beyond? Yes! We still have Internet Retailer and our Gartner CRM Summit events in June. So stay tuned.

Gene Alvarez is a VP in the Gartner CRM Research organization. Mr. Alvarez has more than 30 years of IT experience in business impact assessment, vendor management, project management, software development and delivery of complex...Read Full Bio

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